Egyptian
Brotherhood leader handed sixth life prison sentence: judicial sources
Send a link to a friend
[August 22, 2015]
CAIRO (Reuters) - Egyptian Muslim
Brotherhood leader Mohamed Badie and several other prominent Islamists
were sentenced to life in prison on Saturday for murder and inciting
violence, judicial sources said, part of an ongoing crackdown on the
outlawed group.
|
Badie has faced numerous trials and has accumulated two death
sentences and five sentences to life in prison in separate cases,
which still may be appealed.
Saturday's sentencing related to an attack on a police station in
the city of Port Said in 2013 in which five people were killed. The
attack was part of a wave of violence that swept across Egypt after
the army removed elected Islamist president Mohamed Mursi from power
in July 2013 following mass protests against his rule.
Senior Brotherhood leader Mohamed El-Beltagy, Islamist cleric Safwat
Hegazy, and 16 others were also sentenced to life in prison, 28 to
ten years in prison and 68 acquitted. Another 76 people were given
life sentences in absentia.
Charges ranged from murder and inciting violence to stealing weapons
and destruction of public and private property.
After hearing their sentences, the defendants defiantly flashed the
four-finger Rabaa sign synonymous with the Brotherhood's 2013
sit-ins and chanted "down with military rule" from inside a cage in
the courtroom.
Since deposing Mursi, the authorities have held mass trials for
thousands of Muslim Brotherhood supporters, with hundreds receiving
death sentences or lengthy prison terms. Mursi was sentenced to
death in June over a mass jail break in 2011.
[to top of second column] |
This has drawn criticism from activists and rights groups at home
and abroad. The Egyptian government says the judiciary is
independent and that it never intervenes in its work.
The government deems the Brotherhood a terrorist group. The
Brotherhood, Egypt's oldest opposition movement dating back decades,
says it remains committed to peaceful activism.
President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi approved an anti-terrorism law this
month that sets up special courts. Human rights groups say the law
uses security threats as a pretext to curtail political freedoms won
in a 2011 uprising.
(Reporting by Haitham Ahmed and Ali Abdelaty; Writing by Eric
Knecht; Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky)
[© 2015 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.]
Copyright 2015 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
|